Edgar Wallace

“ The hall was packed, the windows were closed and curtained, and as a precautionary measure, little Peter had placed thick blankets before the ventilators.
At one end of the hall was a platform on which stood a semicircle of chairs and in the centre was a table draped with red. On the wall behind the chairs—every one of which was occupied—was a huge red flag bearing in the centre a great white “C.” It had been tacked to the wall, but one corner had broken away revealing a part of the painted scroll of the mission workers:
“... are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” ”

“ They were old, old platitudes, if the truth be told, but at some time in the history of revolution, some long dead genius had coined them, and newly fashioned in the furnace of his soul they had shaped men’s minds and directed their great and dreadful deeds. ”

“ For here they waged war against great world-criminals-they pitted their strength, their cunning, and their wonderful intellects against the most powerful organization of the underworld—against past masters of villainous arts, and brains equally agile.
It was the day of days for the Red Hundred. The wonderful international congress was meeting in London, the first great congress of recognized Anarchism. ”

“ There are crimes for which there is no adequate punishment, and offences that the machinery of the written law cannot efface. Therein lies the justification for the Four Just Men,—the Council of Justice as they presently came to call themselves a council of great intellects, passionless. ”

“ Little Peter, transfixed for the moment, pushed his way towards the detective.
“Who do you want—what do you want?” he asked.
The detective stood with his back to the door and answered.
“I want two men who were seen to enter this hall: two members of an organization that is outside the Red Hundred. They——”
“Ha!” The woman who still stood upon the platform leant forward with blazing eyes. ”

“ Three aisles ran the length of the building, and they made their way along the central gangway and found seats near the platform.
A brother was speaking. He was a good and zealous worker but a bad orator. He spoke in German and enunciated commonplaces with hoarse emphasis. He said all the things that other men had said and forgotten. “This is the time to strike” was his most notable sentence, and notable only because it evoked a faint buzz of applause. ”

“ If a man does me an injury I smash his head”—he hesitated, ”I do not know how to say it ... but I mean ... well, you kill people without hating them, men who have not hurt you. Now, that is not my way.... ”

“ The meeting to be held to-night at the Phoenix Hall, Middlesex Street, E., with the object of raising funds for a Russian Sailors’ Home is, of course, the first international congress of the Red Hundred. Shall not be able to get a man inside, but do not think that matters much, as meeting will be engaged throwing flowers at one another and serious business will not commence till the meeting of the inner committee. ”

“ If the owner of the factory is a bad man, by all means exterminate him, shoot him, wait on him after he has dined and is slow and dull, and present a petition with the right hand and—with the left hand—so’! ”

“ It is a country up there”—Manfred’s expressive hands waved north,—“a curious, dull country, with curious, dull people. There is a man, a member of the Government, and there are men whom the Government have never heard of. You remember one; he is in England; it is the only country where he is safe; from England he directs the movement here, the great movement. You know of what I speak?”
Thery nodded.
“This year as well as last there has been a famine, men have been dying about the church doors, starving in the public squares; they have watched corrupt Government succeed corrupt Government ”

“ They dismissed the taxi at Aldgate Station and turned into Middlesex Street.
The meeting-place of the great congress was a hall which was originally erected by an enthusiastic Christian gentleman with a weakness for the conversion of Jews to the New Presbyterian Church, With this laudable object it had been opened with great pomp and the singing of anthems and the enthusiastic proselytizer had spoken on that occasion two hours and forty minutes by the clock. ”